Current lysing techniques use heat, chemicals, mechanical grinding/bombardment or a combination of these to achieve cell/spore/tissue disruption.
Methods that rely on chemical or heat lysis alone often require a number of manual steps that the user must strictly follow. If chemicals are used for lysing, often the lysing protocol will require that chemical additives be neutralized after lysing to prevent inhibition in later analyses. This adds complexity, time, and cost to the process.
Mechanical grinding methods, such as using a mortar and pestle, are also manual in nature and thus their effectiveness and repeatability are dependent on the skill of the technician. The additional step of cleaning all of the instruments after each test is required to eliminate the risk of cross contamination between samples.
Current devices that use ultrasonic energy for mechanical lysing require the transducer tip be immersed into the liquid sample during sonication, which again presents the risk of cross contamination between samples if the transducer tip is not thoroughly cleaned between tests. Also, accessibility of the liquid sample to introduce the transducer tip necessitates that the liquid sample be contained in an open environment. Such an open environment increases the possibility of contamination via splashing or atomization.
Another method of mechanical disruption is called the “Bead Beater,” where the sample is put into a container together with rigid beads (e.g. glass or stainless steel spheres). The container is then violently shaken for a set amount of time in a manner similar to a paint mixer. This method is similar in principle to using ultrasonic energy for mechanical disruption, but with a lower frequency and higher amplitude of shaking. Cross contamination between tests is not an issue if new containers are used for each sample, otherwise, the container must be thoroughly cleaned before each new test. However, for some samples, a higher level of agitation is required.
It would be advantageous to develop a lysing system and method that is more automated, more efficient, and less prone to contamination.